Celebrity Indian chef Ranveer Brar will open KashKan restaurant in Dubai in September. Photo: KashKan
Celebrity Indian chef Ranveer Brar will open KashKan restaurant in Dubai in September. Photo: KashKan
Celebrity Indian chef Ranveer Brar will open KashKan restaurant in Dubai in September. Photo: KashKan
Celebrity Indian chef Ranveer Brar will open KashKan restaurant in Dubai in September. Photo: KashKan

Indian chef Ranveer Brar opens first Dubai restaurant and promises 'honest food'


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Indian celebrity chef Ranveer Brar wants to strip back the “outlandish” glamour of high-end restaurants and take diners at his new Dubai venue back to basics with honest – and really good – food.

KashKan, which opens on September 2, is the chef-restaurateur's first venture in the Middle East. KashKan is a portmanteau of Kashmir, the northernmost part of India, and Kanyakumari, which is down in the south. The expansive concept is reinforced by a logo that looks like a compass and alludes to the restaurant's aim to capture the breadth of Indian cuisine.

Brar, who has not opened a restaurant in more than four years, runs a number of dining venues across North America and South Asia. He says while the Covid-19 pandemic had a major impact on the food industry, the sector is bouncing back.

“Life leads you to the right places at the right time,” he tells The National during a media preview of the upcoming restaurant in Dubai Festival City Mall. “This is the place to be,” he adds.

Brar admits, however, that it is virtually impossible and almost a disservice to claim that one restaurant could do justice to the vastness and variety of Indian cuisine.

“Restaurants like this are not even a blip on the screen, relative to the cuisines of entire countries and regions,” he says. KashKan only hopes to spark meaningful conversations about Indian food, he adds.

Brar has more than two decades of culinary experience, opening restaurants, writing cookbooks and being a household name on Indian TV. Photo: KashKan
Brar has more than two decades of culinary experience, opening restaurants, writing cookbooks and being a household name on Indian TV. Photo: KashKan

“These restaurants can become mouthpieces to talk about the infinitely diverse culture that we have.”

Brar's candour extends to saying “food is subjective” and he doesn't expect everyone to have the same experiences when eating his dishes.

“I might trigger a memory, I might not,” he says. “I might trigger a bad memory with the food I serve. I am just as much a disciple of food who's still learning like everybody else.”

The food

In a refreshing take on Indian cuisine, Brar has created a menu that highlights authentic flavours, trying hard to veer away from serving “stereotypical food that people usually see in restaurants”.

On my visit, I sample several dishes, which the Indian chef admits he is still “thinking about” whether to include (or not) in the final menu. These include warm hibiscus rasam soup, crispy kale chaat and an inventive tandoori platter to start.

The crispy kale dish features vibrant flavours and colours on a plate. One Carlo Diaz / The National
The crispy kale dish features vibrant flavours and colours on a plate. One Carlo Diaz / The National

Avoiding the usual butter chicken main course, Brar served rich and flavourful Nagaland black sesame chicken, paneer makhani and nizami tarkari biryani. The tasting finished with a tasty but rather hearty gulab jamun cheesecake.

The venue

The restaurant, on the first level of Festival City mall, can sit up to 210 people. It has an outdoor section overlooking the waterfront promenade.

Inside, the colourful decor and furniture are meant to represent India's vibrant culture, Brar explains. There is a kitchen separated by a glass window, as well as a central bar where desserts and drinks are prepared.

The venue also has five private dining rooms, or cabanas as Brar refers to them, each centred around a theme based on India's major regions with screens that play in-theme travel and food clips on loop.

One wall features photographs taken either by Brar or his friends, adding a personal touch. The dining area that faces the mall's fountain is bright and airy, speaking to the Indian chef's laid-back approach.

The allure of Dubai

Brar joins a host of other internationally renowned chefs entering the burgeoning food scene in Dubai. Recently, Indian chefs Ritu Dalmia and Kunal Kapur opened restaurants in the city.

For the Lucknow-born Brar, who is currently a judge in the Indian franchise of cooking show MasterChef, it's not Dubai's glitzy reputation that excites him most.

“More than being sophisticated, I think Dubai's food culture is very embracing and that is what makes it beautiful for me,” he says.

“You have these tiny precincts scattered across the city, with their own subcultures. You move from one block to another and you have a completely different cultural undercurrent. People who have been here for years have learnt to embrace these nuances.”

Brar says Dubai's foodies are taught naturally to embrace diversity and a “little bit of adventure”. He says this reminds him of Melbourne, which has taken so many years to build a strong multicultural community.

“If the same thing develops in Dubai over the next decades, this is going to be an amazing city.”

Russia's Muslim Heartlands

Dominic Rubin, Oxford

 

 

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While you're here
Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Temple numbers

Expected completion: 2022

Height: 24 meters

Ground floor banquet hall: 370 square metres to accommodate about 750 people

Ground floor multipurpose hall: 92 square metres for up to 200 people

First floor main Prayer Hall: 465 square metres to hold 1,500 people at a time

First floor terrace areas: 2,30 square metres  

Temple will be spread over 6,900 square metres

Structure includes two basements, ground and first floor 

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ABU DHABI ORDER OF PLAY

Starting at 10am:

Daria Kasatkina v Qiang Wang

Veronika Kudermetova v Annet Kontaveit (10)

Maria Sakkari (9) v Anastasia Potapova

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova v Ons Jabeur (15)

Donna Vekic (16) v Bernarda Pera 

Ekaterina Alexandrova v Zarina Diyas

COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Lexus LX700h specs

Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor

Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm

Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm

Transmission: 10-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh590,000

Moon Music

Artist: Coldplay

Label: Parlophone/Atlantic

Number of tracks: 10

Rating: 3/5

MATCH INFO

Burnley 0

Man City 3

Raheem Sterling 35', 49'

Ferran Torres 65'

 

 

RESULTS

6.30pm: Meydan Sprint Group 2 US$175,000 1,000m
Winner: Ertijaal, Jim Crowley (jockey), Ali Rashid Al Raihe (trainer)

7.05pm: Handicap $60,000 1,400m
Winner: Secret Ambition, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar

7.40pm: Handicap $160,000 1,400m
Winner: Raven’s Corner, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar

8.15pm: Dubai Millennium Stakes Group 3 $200,000 2,000m
Winner: Folkswood, William Buick, Charlie Appleby

8.50pm: Zabeel Mile Group 2 $250,000 1,600m
Winner: Janoobi, Jim Crowley, Mike de Kock

9.25pm: Handicap $125,000 1,600m
Winner: Capezzano, Mickael Barzalona, Salem bin Ghadayer

AIR
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Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Our legal consultant

Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Updated: August 30, 2023, 11:38 AM`